NASA: Dawn JPL spacecraft used an ion engine to approach dwarf planet Ceres

PhysOrg, “NASA invests in 22 visionary exploration concepts” 9 April 2017:

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is advancing for a new round of research funded by the agency.

In total, the space agency is investing in 22 early-stage technology proposals that have the potential to transform future human and robotic exploration missions, introduce new exploration capabilities, and significantly improve current approaches to building and operating aerospace systems.

The 2017 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) portfolio of Phase I concepts covers a wide range of innovations selected for their potential to revolutionize future space exploration. Phase I awards are valued at approximately $125,000, for nine months, to support initial definition and analysis of their concepts. If these basic feasibility studies are successful, awardees can apply for Phase II awards.

“The NIAC program engages researchers and innovators in the scientific and engineering communities, including agency civil servants,” said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “The program gives fellows the opportunity and funding to explore visionary aerospace concepts that we appraise and potentially fold into our early stage technology portfolio.”

The selected 2017 Phase I proposals are:

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Alphagame, “The Coalburner’s Daddy”, 8 April 2017:

This is why you don’t let your daughters mudshark:

Gunfire on Friday morning claimed the lives of a St. Paul father and the two teenage daughters he doted on.

The shooting at a Payne-Phalen apartment also left the girls’ mother clinging to life.

Immediately after the shooting, authorities began a frantic search for one of the victims’ daughter — an 18-month-old girl. Police found the toddler safe and arrested the man who was hiding with her in a shed not far from the apartment.

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A Briton was among four killed in Stockholm terror attack

Telegraph, “Stockholm terror attack: four reported dead as hijacked truck ploughs into pedestrians,” 7 April 2017:

Truck is hijacked and driven into Stockholm department store

At least four reported dead and many injured after terror attack

Witnesses report hundreds of shoppers running for their lives

Swedish capital goes into lockdown and central station evacuated

Swedish Prime Minister: Everything indicates this is terrorism

EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker: Terror assault is attack on us all

Crash comes after trucks used in Nice and Berlin atrocities

At least four people are reported dead and many more injured after a terror attack that saw a hijacked lorry plough into pedestrians outside a Stockholm department store

      ...and that’s why our enemies hate him.

      Bashar Al-Assad visiting the Holodomor memorial dedicated to the Ukrainians who perished by starvation under the Soviets.

#6: What color the attackers were: Jez - “The Goat Pub, where the attackers of the Kurdish Iranian (asylum seeker) came from serves Zambian food and is known as ‘a black pub.”

James Fulford, VDare - “While it is occasionally a den of iniquity like the Star Wars Cantina, it is less multicultural than that famous tavern, and the licence holder is named Ngoma…

Yes, the Goat, while it claims to be a family friendly pub, is a family friendly Zambian pub, and its customers are mostly black.”

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                  Michael Flynn seated with Vladimir Putin and Jill Stein right.

ITV News, “Trump administration ‘will be having restless nights over Flynn testimony offer”, 31 March 2017:

Flynn was famously pictured sitting next to Vladimir Putin at a gala in Moscow in December 2015 and it was his conversations with Russian officials that ultimately led to his downfall.

President Trump and his administration will have endured a “restless night’s sleep” following Michael Flynn’s offer to testify about possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution, Barack Obama’s former press secretary has told ITV News.

Flynn, ousted as national security adviser in February following an onslaught of damaging headlines about his ties to the Kremlin, has told the FBI and Congress that he “has a story to tell” but wants assurances “against unfair prosecution”.

Josh Earnest, who served as the former president’s top spokesman for three years, said Flynn’s offer “is an indication that he is concerned about the information he may reveal”.

“My guess is that there were a lot of restless night’s sleep last night after that Wall Street Journal story posted,” Earnest told ITV News.

“Because everybody who thought they were having a private conversation with Mike Flynn in the last two years or anybody who sent an email over the last two years or anybody who has been responsible for publicly defending him over the last two months is now in a position where that information could be revealed to the FBI or congressional investigators.

“That has to be a little disconcerting to everybody - including the president of the United States.”

Trump’s young presidency has so far been blighted by the ongoing suspicion that his campaign colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to sway the election in his favour.

Flynn is one of a number of Trump associates under investigation by the FBI as part of the probe into Russian meddling.

Earnest said Trump’s decision to appoint Flynn to a role “so crucial” to America’s national security would again come under scrutiny.

“Appointing someone like General Flynn to be his national security adviser and have him resign after 24 days because he was being dishonest and now potentially has some criminal liability - it’s concerning and does raise questions about the president’s judgement in putting somebody like General Flynn into a position that is so crucial to our national security.”

Earnest, who now works as a political analyst for NBC, urged observers not to jump to conclusions over Flynn’s offer to testify, saying it was too early to say whether the retired three-star Army general would provide the “smoking gun” which directly links the president to Russia’s aggressive operation to meddle in the election process.

“He’s got a story he wants to tell - we’ll see what happens.”

Flynn was one of Trump’s closest confidantes on the campaign trail, gaining prominence for his raucous attacks on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server.

In comments likely to come back to haunt him, Flynn told NBC last September: “When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime.”

After Trump’s victory, Flynn was appointed as the new administration’s top security adviser despite concerns over his desire to forge closer ties to the Russian government.

He was famously pictured sitting next to Vladimir Putin at a gala in Moscow in December 2015 and it was his conversations with Russian officials that ultimately led to his downfall.

       
Michael Flynn, pictured above left with Donald Trump, was ousted as national security adviser in February following an onslaught of damaging headlines about his ties to the Kremlin Credit: AP

Flynn was forced to quit after a less than a month in the role when it emerged that he had discussed sanctions that the Obama administration had imposed on the Kremlin with the Russian ambassador - conversations which he then subsequently lied about to the Vice-President Mike Pence.

It is one of a number of scandals to have engulfed the president since he took office on January 20.

“Everyday seems to be a day of new drama in this White House and it is part of the leadership style that we’ve seen from President Trump - he likes to preside over chaos and keeping people off balance,” Earnest said.

“It’s the way he ran his campaign and it worked; But I think we are seeing that running a campaign is a lot different to running a country. When you are running a country people expect you to be a source of stability, not chaos.”

Visigrad Post, “The Visegrád Group Will Not Yield to Blackmail, and Hungary Strengthens Anti-Immigration Policy”, 28 March 2017:

Poland, Warsaw – The leaders of the Visegrád Group, meeting in Warsaw on Tuesday (March 28th), denounced with one voice the European blackmail and diktat over them regarding migration policy.

The four prime ministers strongly opposed the idea of ​​linking the distribution of EU funds to the EU’s migration policy.

“The idea of ​​linking the funds due to us from the EU with migration policy is bad. Together as the Visegrad Group, we cannot be intimidated, “Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a joint press conference with his Czech counterpart Bohuslav Sobotka, Slovakian Robert Fico and Polish Beata Szydlo.

“The Visegrad Group, including Poland, will never accept this blackmail, nor be dictated conditions. We are saying clearly that the migration policy that has been followed up until now by the EU has not proved its worth, and we must learn from it, “Szydlo insisted.

Hungary continues anti-immigration policy

On the same day, the law allowing detention of illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers entered into force in Hungary. “Hungary is now in a position to respond even if the agreement between the EU and Turkey fails. We are able to stop any wave of immigration on the Serbian-Hungarian border, “Orban said, adding that “the Austrians and Germans can now sleep peacefully.”

       
        The second fence will be completed by summer, the Hungarian Interior Ministry said.

It is important to note, however, that migrant detention centers are not prisons. Placed on the border, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are allowed to leave for Serbia at any time, if they do not wish to follow the legal procedures for entering into Hungary, Schengen and the European Union.

Illustrations by Sophia den Breems

”Why Trump’s ties to Russia would be way worse than Watergate”

- Sarah Kendzior, Flyover Country Correspondent, 30 March 2017:

At 5:25 am on Monday, March 20, Donald J. Trump logged onto Twitter and wrote: “James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!”

Hours later, at a congressional hearing assembled to investigate foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election, FBI director James Comey confirmed the FBI probe into Trump’s ties to Russia that same day. Comey confirmed that Trump and “individuals associated with the Trump campaign” had been under investigation for Russian collusion since late July, and that the investigation was still ongoing.

Contrary to Trump’s assertion, this statement was not “fake news,” nor was it news at all to those who had followed the Russian interference story since it broke last summer.

In August 2016, former Democratic Senator Harry Reid implored Comey to reveal information about Russian interference that he said “is more extensive than is widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results,” adding that the public had the right to know before the November election. Comey responded, notoriously, not by revealing that Trump was under FBI investigation, but by implying that Hillary Clinton was, in an “October surprise” faux email scandal that was retracted only after the rumor had damaged her campaign.

Reid wrote to Comey again in late October and reemphasized the Russian threat: “It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity… and yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.”

After Trump won, calls for an investigation into Russian interference began in late November, led by Republicans like John McCain and Lindsay Graham as well as Democrats like Elijah Cummings, Maxine Waters, and Adam Schiff, the latter of whom led the interrogation of Comey and NSA head Michael Rogers at the March 20 hearings. Though it has falsely been portrayed by both the Trump administration and some media outlets as a Democrat-led witchhunt, Russian interference in the election was always a bipartisan concern. Any threat to both national security and sovereignty is a bipartisan concern, and the reluctance of the Trump administration to cooperate with the investigation has long been an ominous indication of his limitations and loyalties.

Instead of watchdogs, we have lapdogs

If you were the president of the United States, sworn under oath to protect and serve the public, wouldn’t you want foreign interference in your campaign to be investigated – at the very least, to prevent the recurrence of similar actions?

Or would you try to impede the investigation, by smearing those who seek it (among them intelligence officials, legislators, and reporters) and by installing officials who either benefit from the Russian relationship (like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson), seem selected in order to obfuscate the Russian relationship (like Attorney General Jeff Sessions), or both?

Trump chose to assemble an administration designed to cover up and aid his shady dealings with the Kremlin, leading to an administration so spectacularly corrupt and inept it has no corollary in US history.

Here’s where it currently stands:

The President is under investigation for colluding with a foreign power. He is being investigated by an oversight committee, the head of which, Republican representative Devin Nunes, has functioned less as a watchdog than a lapdog, providing information about the investigation of Trump to Trump in a breach of protocol. And this was not Nunes’ only misdeed: he was also present at a January meeting between Turkish officials and Trump’s former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, who in February resigned in disgrace after being revealed to be working secretly for the Turkish and Russian governments for millions of dollars.

In short, the US has employed a president suspected of treason, an oversight committee head who refuses to do oversight, and a national security advisor who undermined US national security.

The Trump clan and the Russian spy recruiter

Unfortunately, that’s only the beginning. There is also attorney general Jeff Sessions, who has had to recuse himself from the Russia interference investigation because he is implicated due to multiple meetings with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the campaign. (Sessions is not alone; Kislyak, rumored to moonlight as a spy recruiter, also met with Flynn, Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner, and Trump, though all have mysteriously foggy memories of these encounters.)

Then there’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, recipient of an “Order of Friendship” medal from Vladimir Putin, who does not seem to know why he is even in office, admitting this week, “I didn’t want this job, my wife told me to do this.” Unfortunately, Tillerson came to that revelation only after inflaming military tensions with North Korea.

On top of that, the Trump administration contains a burgeoning and possibly illegal nepotistic dynasty (Jared and Ivanka, currently getting security clearances and White House office space despite no experience in government)....

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